Another doctor reveals he helped a terminally ill man die

Julia Medew and Kate Hagan

Another Australian doctor has admitted giving a man a lethal dose of a drug at the end of his life in a bid to highlight the need for a debate about voluntary euthanasia.

One week after Melbourne urologist Rodney Syme dared police to charge him over his provision of a fatal drug to a dying man, Dr Percy Rogers said he had also helped a terminally ill man die.

Dr Rogers, a locum GP, said about 47 years ago, he got a call to attend to a friend of his who was clearly suffering as he approached the end of his life with lung cancer.

"He was on the bed gasping in terrible pain and was looking for some relief from the pain, so I ordered 20 milligrams of morphine ... A nun who had accompanied me there said 'But doctor, that will shorten ... ' and then stopped; she said no more. What I’m sure she was going to say was 'that will shorten his life'.

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"That was about 11 o’clock at night and I then I had a ring in the early hours of the morning to say he had passed away. I’m certain that it [the morphine] depressed his respiration and shortened his life. It shortened it probably by a matter of hours rather than days."

Dr Rogers said although the dose was capable of hastening his friend's death, his primary intention was to relieve his pain.

"He was in considerable distress and my training as a doctor was to relieve people’s distress ... I felt I was doing my job," he said.

Dr Rogers chose to speak out about the death, which he said could arguably be labelled euthanasia, to support Dr Syme, the vice-president of Dying with Dignity Victoria.

Dr Syme last week admitted he had given Steve Guest, a 58-year-old-man who was dying of esophageal cancer, a lethal drug which he used to end his own life in 2005. Police are now investigating the admission. If Dr Syme could be jailed for up to five years if charged with inciting, aiding or abetting a suicide.

Dr Rogers said he had also given terminally ill people prescriptions for lethal amounts of drugs on rare occasions in the past after being assured they were of sound mind and would not use the drug "lightly or mischievously". He said he did not know if they ended up using a fatal dose of the drug or not.

"I think there must be a community debate about this ... The population is ageing, so this is going to be a problem confronting a lot more people," said the GP, who works regularly with indigenous Australians in remote communities.

Dr Rogers’ disclosures came as the group Doctors for Voluntary Euthanasia Choice said they supported Dr Syme and wanted voluntary euthanasia to be legalised for terminally ill patients with intolerable symptoms. The group of almost 100 doctors, including GPs, surgeons and specialists from around Australia, said end-of-life assistance "should be a final, compassionate act of palliative care and should be legal".

A spokesman for the group and retired Adelaide gynaecologist and obstetrician, Arnold Gillespie, said he believed other doctors were taking similar action to Dr Syme and helping terminally ill patients suffering incurable pain to end their lives.

"Undoubtedly there are doctors doing that out of compassion for their patients when the medical profession has nothing else to offer," he said.

Associate Professor Gillespie said in his career as a gynaecologist he had been confronted with patients "in the terminal phase of ovarian cancer for whom relief could not be obtained".

He said various polls had shown overwhelming community support for voluntary euthanasia for patients experiencing unrelievable and incurable suffering, and it was time for politicians to reflect community attitudes by legislating in favour of it.